Today, an increasing number of people use Internet streaming services for entertainment. Media content companies provide streaming media services including catalog services, a content delivery network, and per-stream billing services that allow media applications to stream content to individual listeners on mobile devices very cost effectively. Media streaming services are convenient, as they allow users to view desired media content on-demand and gain access to large catalogs of content at relatively low-cost. However, these services are not set up for multicast or broadcast delivery of media, which generally needs more expensive technology support to deliver and track playback for billing purposes. Moreover, media streaming can be a lonely experience, because other people do not see the same content at the same time, unless those other people are physically present in the same room. Further, sharing the content with other people in the same room on small mobile devices can be a difficult experience.
Numerous technologies exist for broadcast and/or multicast synchronized streaming of media ranging from low-level technology such as MPEG4 which provides clock synchronization primitives, to full-scale audio-over-IP systems. However, there remains a need for a system that delivers synchronized media playback to one or many users, mimicking the behavior of a multicast or broadcast network, but taking advantage of the low cost and ease-of-use of a streaming media content provider, and by doing so, drastically reducing the cost associated with synchronized streaming while leveraging widely-available computer and mobile phone technologies.